Vladimir Putin addressed US President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton, and the CIA in his highly anticipated interview with Tucker Carlson. During the interview, he discussed his personal relationships with Donald Trump and George W. Bush, expressed willingness to negotiate on the conflict in Ukraine, clarified his stance against attacking a NATO member country, and noted that the West fears a strong China more than a strong Russia.
The two-hour interview was posted on Carlson’s website, the Tucker Carlson Network, shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday (local time, 1 a.m).
Speaking through a translator, Putin began by answering a question about the war in Ukraine with the following: “Are we having a talk show or a serious interview?”
He then offered Carlson a “historical background” of the conflict in Ukraine before defending the actions of his military, and went on to make a number of serious claims such as that Bill Clinton offered Russia a seat in NATO, but was turned down by his staff, that Russia has superior “supersonic missiles” than any other nation, that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is a “spy” and that the CIA blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.
? FULL INTERVIEW ? Vladimir Putin X Tucker Carlson ⚠️ Watch Now: pic.twitter.com/3eUT6LLwrX
— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) February 8, 2024
Putin backed his nation’s military capability, saying Russian forces “have created supersonic systems with intercontinental range and we continue to deploy them.
We are now ahead of everyone, the United States and other countries in terms of developing supersonic strike systems.
And we are improving them every day.”
Russia’s defeat in the war in Ukraine is “impossible by definition,” Vladimir Putin said.
“There have been cries of strategic defeat to be inflicted on Russia on the battlefield,” the Russian president said. “In my opinion, this is impossible by definition. It will never happen.”
The 2014 coup in Ukraine was organized by the CIA
When asked what was the decisive moment when he decided to launch his attack, Putin replied “initially, it was the coup in Ukraine” – referring to the removal of Zelensky’s predecessor Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
“And what triggered the current events? First, the current leadership of Ukraine will not implement the Minsk Agreements,” Putin continued. The Minsk Agreements were a series of treaties that sought to end the Donbass war between Ukraine and Russian separatist groups, signed in 2014.
“The coup in Ukraine was clearly organized by the CIA,” the Russian president said, calling it a miscalculation by the Russian leadership as well.
“The new leadership in Ukraine began attacks in Donbass against the civilian population with artillery and air force while NATO was promising to open its doors to the Ukrainian regime. We could not stand idly by, this could destroy Russia itself and it was not possible to leave our Russian brothers at the mercy of the coup plotters in Donbass,” he added.
Putin noted that then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had agreed to early elections but the coup plotters had other plans and the support of European countries such as France and Germany.
As the conversation turned to Putin’s relationship with the US, he thought a change of president would change the outcome of the war – but praised Trump.
“You just asked me if another leader comes in and changes something? It’s not about the leader,” he said, emphasizing the good personal relationship he had with Donald Trump.
“It’s not about a particular person’s personality. I had a very good relationship with Bush, for example. I know that in the United States, he was portrayed as a kind of peasant who doesn’t understand much. I can assure you that this is not the case.”
He went on to say that he had a similarly warm relationship with former President Donald Trump, saying: “It’s not about the personality of the leader. It’s about the elite mindset.
If the idea of domination at any cost, based on and based on forceful actions dominates American society, nothing will change. It will only get worse.”
US and EU led the Istanbul talks to a train wreck – Our goal is the denazification of Ukraine
Putin claimed in a striking manner that a peace deal for the Ukraine war was once almost agreed, accusing the “western side” of wanting to continue the war for as long as possible.
“We are willing to negotiate,” he said.
“It is the western side and Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US. It’s obvious.
I don’t want you to take that as me looking for a strong word or an insult. But we both understand what’s going on.”
“Once the military operation began in 2022, Russia was ready for negotiations aimed at a peaceful resolution of the crisis and this was evident in the Istanbul talks.
Then the US and its satellites in the EU told us that it was not right to hold talks with Russian troops outside Kiev and we withdrew them.
But the West had made its decisions,” said the Russian president who made it clear that denazification of Ukraine remains the main goal of the special military operation.
Referring to the issue of negotiations, Putin recalled that the Ukrainian president has also banned them by law, and in response to a question from the American journalist, he stressed that he had not spoken with the US president before the war in Ukraine started.
“You are making a mistake of historic proportions by supporting everyone in Ukraine. If you want to know what Biden’s response was on both that and nuclear weapons ask him”
The West fears a strong China more than a strong Russia
“The West fears a strong China more than it fears a strong Russia because Russia has 150 million people and China has 1.5 billion people. And its economy is growing by leaps and bounds, or 5% a year,” Putin said.
The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines was carried out by the CIA
When asked if he knew who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, the Russian leader replied with a laugh: “Sure.” Tucker Carlson jokingly replied that he was busy that day, with Putin continuing: “You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi.”
“You know, I won’t go into details, but people always say in such cases, look for someone who is interested,” the Russian president continued.
“But in this case, we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has capabilities, because there may be many interested parties, but not all of them are capable at the bottom of the Baltic Sea to carry out such an explosion.
These two elements must be linked.
Who is interested and who is capable of doing it?”
We will not attack any NATO country
Sending a message against Russophobia, Putin made it clear that Russia will not attack any NATO country and referred to Poland, Latvia by name.
The Russian president ruled out the possibility that his country’s armed forces might go on to invade Poland or Latvia, countries where Russia “has no interests”, during an interview with US anchor Tucker Carlson granted this week and broadcast yesterday Thursday afternoon in the US (at 01:00 GMT).
“We have no interests in Poland, Latvia, or elsewhere. Why would we do that? We simply have no interests (…) There is no question,” the Russian president replied when asked if “you can imagine a scenario in which you would send Russian troops to Poland.”
Putin considers a “deal” for the release of American journalist Evan Gerskovic possible
The Russian president has said it is possible to find a deal to release American journalist Evan Gerskovich, who has been held in Russia for almost a year.
“I believe we can reach an agreement,” he said. “There are no taboos about settling this issue. We are ready to resolve it, but some conditions are under discussion through the channels of special services,” he added.
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